


air de danse

by trailsofpaper (Sanwall)



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Historical, Car Sex, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 02:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10688007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanwall/pseuds/trailsofpaper
Summary: If there was a place to find men of the same inclination, it was the theatre and dance scene. But Lew would never in his wildest dreams have imagined someone like Dick, who approached a ballet performance with the same single mindedness and devotion he undertook anything else, to take a shine to him, the rich kid who’d never had to apply himself.





	air de danse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kunstvogel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunstvogel/gifts), [jouissant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/gifts).



Lew prided himself on few things - he had a much too clear understanding of his own myriad failings - but one of the things he did pride himself on was his ability to keep calm under pressure.

So too this time - so much had been riding on this very first premiere for the New York City Ballet, the culmination of Balanchine’s years of endeavor. Lew loved working with Jerome Robbins, but tensions had been running high during the thirty minutes of  _ Orpheus _ , and Lew had been on the receiving end of more than one furiously-whispered command during the performance, scrabbling madly to make sure the stage machinery of the New York City Center worked as it should. 

Lew was used to being commanded, and he did the work gladly. It was the implication that he didn’t know what he was doing that rankled.

Here he was now, leaning against his beloved, fresh off the line 1948 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500.  _ Freccia d’Oro _ they called these hand-built European cars,  _ Golden Arrow _ , but Lew always thought of it as a black mare, beautiful and temperamental. Absent-mindedly he tapped his fingers against the gleaming, rounded hood. 

Not a car you could afford on the salary of an assistant to the Assistant Art Director, but Lew happened to be the son of the wealthiest of the contributors to the newly-founded school of ballet, and it had its perks. The perks rankled too, but at least Lew knew he’d gotten the job on his own merits, even if it was the only thing he’d gotten on his own merits in this life.

Lew made his way through half a pack of cigarettes while the audience trickled out, talking excitedly - the gentlemen in their tuxedo overcoats cutting squares in the lamplight, the ladies holding onto their swaying hats as they folded themselves into the cars - and emptying the parking lot little by little.

At last there was only Lew and his Black Mare left, the glowing point of his cigarette a lone beacon.

And like a beacon, it called a figure to him. The figure was close to black in the unlit parking lot but moved with unmistakable grace. Lew felt his heart beat faster, and he stood up straight, the darkness making him bold.

“Hey lover,” he murmured, forming a smile around his cigarette. Dick’s face appeared from the dark; the curve of his nose and cheekbones highlighted by the orange glow, the red of his hair starkly exaggerated. He was smiling too.

“Hi, Lew,” he said, voice soft. “Everyone else  left for the afterparty. You sure you don’t want to join them?”

Dick, unlike every other ballet dancer, didn’t smoke, and he definitely didn’t drink - something that Lew did in abundance. But driving Dick home was a much sweeter promise than any whiskey, and Lew told Dick this.

Dick’s adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, his throat laid bare, and Lew realized he had thrown on only a shirt after changing out of his unitard. 

“Jesus Christ, Dick!” Lew said, balancing the cigarette skillfully in the corner of his mouth as he quickly stripped out of his overcoat. He threw it around Dick’s shoulders despite his protests, and Dick gripped the expensive material tight so it wouldn’t fall to the ground.

“I’m still warm from the performance,” Dick said, blinking at Lew with that particular measured slowness that only Dick could manage. “I don’t need it.”

“That’s the adrenaline talking,” Lew said, plucking the cigarette from his mouth and waved his hand around. “You’re cold but you don’t even know it yet!”

Dick’s grip slackened on the coat and he looked down.

“It’s not even that cold out,” he said, but he said it like he was wondering about it, trying to correctly assess the temperature of this late April night.

“You were stunning as Apollo, but you’re not the sun,” Lew grumbled, and turned to open the car door for him.

Dick didn’t move, however, and Lew had to turn to look at him again. The cigarette was almost down to the filter, between Lew’s fingers, and Dick’s face was shrouded in shadow, inscrutable.

“Stunning?” he repeated, and Lew felt a blush creep up on his neck. 

He had found Dick stunning ever since he first set eyes on him, in his sleeveless leotard warming up before a rehearsal, the overhead lights of the studio lending a shine to the sculpted lines of his body and a copper tint to his hair curling damp across his forehead. 

If there was a place to find men of the same inclination, it was the theatre and dance scene. But Lew would never in his wildest dreams have imagined someone like Dick, who approached a ballet performance with the same single mindedness and devotion he undertook anything else, to take a shine to him, the rich kid who’d never had to apply himself. 

“It’s because you apply yourself, even when you don’t have to,” Dick had said once, when Lew had brought it up, but Lew had dismissed it as the nonsense people talk in the throes of passion. Lord knew Lew tended to babble himself.

Somehow, despite all their differences, they had found a kindred spirit in each other, and Lew was not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was the easiest thing in the world to invite Dick into his life, and behind the scenes Lew could make a face and Dick would catch his meaning immediately and hide a smile with his hand.

It had been the easiest thing to lean in for a kiss, as Dick did now, out in the open under the cover of night. Lew opened his arms and mouth to let him in again.

Somehow they fell into the car right across the front seats, Dick blanketing Lew with his body and Lew’s overcoat falling like a curtain around them. They closed the door carefully, but didn’t let up kissing for even a second. 

The adrenaline that kept Dick warm seemed to make him impatient - he made quick work of Lew’s buttons,  trailing a hand across Lew’s chest and stomach, down to his pants.  Lew’s hat had been knocked off as he landed on his back, and Lew pushed a hand through his undoubtedly disheveled hair in an attempt to get a grip on himself.

“C’mere,” he murmured, and he saw the faintest glimmer of blue as Dick looked up at him. Lew felt something lodge in his throat as Dick leaned down to kiss him again.

The Alfa Romeo wasn’t a spacious car, and Lew had his legs folded and feet pressed against the window. Dick was sitting in the cradle of his hips, and as such there was no concealing his affections. Dick managed to get a hand in his pants despite being folded down on top of him, and Lew’s hands came up to grip the thighs bracketing his sides, even if his elbow knocked into the steering wheel.

Lew dug his fingers in, relishing the feeling of Dick’s solid muscles flexing under his touch.

Like Stravinsky’s music, things built up - clever fingers coaxing sounds by hitting the right notes on warm skin. Dick’s breath fogged up the windows - and Lew supposed he helped too, with the moans he muffled by biting into his own palm, even as he pushed his other palm against Dick.

Dick was so impatient that Lew climaxed soon enough with a bitten-off groan, giving in to the almost rough touch. After the white noise of complete bliss settled and the rustle of Dick moving on top of him imposed, Lew felt a wicked grin tug at his mouth, and he shifted to press his leg up between Dick’s.

It unbalanced Dick, who shot out his arm to brace himself against the door by Lew’s head. The soft, shuddering breath that he let out told Lew he didn’t mind, and so Lew finally got the opportunity to get his hand in Dick’s pants.

They weren’t the thin material of the unitard that left little to imagination, but in getting a hand on Dick Lew was privileged enough to go beyond that, to feel the weight of him hot to the touch. It was intoxicating, to feel rather than hear Dick’s breath speed up.

“You were fantastic,” Lew whispered, his words loud in the confined space. A shiver went through Dick, and Lew could feel it in the way his powerful thighs squeezed his ribs. Lew trailed his hand up Dick’s back in the darkness, sliding his hand under the overcoat and along the ridges of Dick’s bowed spine. Lew tangled his fingers in his hair, the exact red shade he knew by heart even swallowed by darkness as it was now.

“I couldn’t wait to get my hands on you,” Lew said, turning his head to put his lips to Dick’s throat. “Everything else just faded away, you know.”

“No,” Dick said, unfailingly honest even as his breath became uneven. “I don’t know. Tell me about it, Lew.”

“It’s kind of what it’s like when the curtain opens,” Lew said slowly, letting his thumb rub lazy circles, the way he knew Dick loved. “Or the moment before, when you’ve been waiting, the butterflies building and building and you’re nauseous because you’re afraid of wanting it too much.”

Dick’s hand scrabbled against the window, like the desperate move of a trapped animal.

“Shh, it’s okay,” Lew said, somewhat nonsensically, and gently pressed Dick’s head down against his shoulder. Dick’s breath was hot on his collar, and Lew felt deliriously happy for a dizzying second.

Dick made a keening noise high in his throat, abruptly silenced as he clenched his mouth shut. Lew felt wetness against his hand, and hid a smile against Dick’s cheek.

Dick’s body relaxed by increments, his arm sliding down on top of Lew’s before he settled down on Lew’s leg and stretched out as much as he could.

“We’re going to pay for this tomorrow,” Lew said with a grimace and a laugh, as he tried to shift. He only realized now, with Dick’s full weight resting on him, that the handbrake was digging uncomfortably into his side. “We’re not as young as we once were, you know.”

“I’ll let you drive me home then, if it’s getting to be too much for you,” Dick said, and his voice was so familiar in the darkness that Lew had to burrow his face closer for a second, press against his skin.

“You’re always too much,” Lew said, and Dick let out a soft huff that Lew knew was a laugh. Maybe there was one other thing in Lew’s life that he had earned on his own merits, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This came about from a discussion with celestial-annihilation, who not only came up with the concept of Dick as a ballet dancer, [but also created some fantastic art of it!](http://trailsofpaper.tumblr.com/post/159818112223/if-there-was-a-place-to-find-men-of-the-same)  
> Many thanks to jouissant for beta-reading, I appreciate it immensely! Any remaining mistakes are undoubtedly my own.  
> 


End file.
